


T is for Tentacles

by Rinkafic



Series: Lorne Parrish Alphabet Soup [12]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Stargate Atlantis AU, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-09 07:31:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David has a secret that he managed to keep for a very long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	T is for Tentacles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camshaft22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camshaft22/gifts).



For all the years of the original expedition, David Parrish had managed to stay dry while within sight of anyone on Atlantis. He hadn’t even risked showering, just in case, because he didn’t want to accidentally shift forms and get stuck in an awkward position and lose his job, which he loved very much. He had to content himself with splashes of water from the basin, sponge baths and the occasional dip in the sea when he went back to Earth. He also drank a lot of bottled water, more than most people realized, although Stackhouse had once asked him if he was part camel. He’d laughed it off, he wasn’t part camel, he was part something else. But he didn’t say that to Stacks.

The mild discomfort of being dry all the time had been worth the sacrifice. He loved plants and dirt and growing things so very much that he had been willing to give up his old life to go to the land and study. He had been very content. The expedition to Atlantis had been a risk, but one worth taking.

Then he met Evan Lorne and his world turned upside down and he needed to stay on the land more than ever, so he kept his secret.

Serving on the same team, they had become friends. Sensing his hesitancy about a deeper relationship, Evan had been willing to go slowly and give David the time he needed to get used to things. Evan had obviously thought his reticence and shyness were due to the fact that Evan was the first person David had ever been romantically involved with. Intimacy came in slow stages over the time they were together. Companionship was the most important element of the relationship to them both. Friendship was safe, and socially acceptable in public. Intimacy was more of a risk, given Evan’s military position.

When they finally did become physically involved, he’d been nervous that his secret would come out, and that Evan would be angry at the deception and feel betrayed. Even worse, and quite likely, Evan would be disgusted by him and end their friendship and have David shipped back to Earth. He had anticipated that their first time together would be their last time, not knowing how his body would react to the act of lovemaking. Surprisingly, everything had gone +as it should, though his nerves had been so raw that he hadn’t really been able to enjoy it that first time, once he realized he wasn’t going to shift back to true form.

Evan hinted now and then that he wanted to share the shower with him, have some soapy sexy playtime under the water, but he’d managed to distract him from that every time the subject came up. He also declined his lover’s invitations to go swimming, though his heart yearned for the water. Things were good between them, they were in love, though as time wore on, his heart grew heavy and his guilt increased over the huge, potentially damaging secret he was keeping from Evan. He couldn’t risk losing the soil now. He wasn’t ready or willing to go back to the sea.

After the sojourn on Earth, when Atlantis returned to Pegasus, David went along of course, because Evan was going. After all the years he had spent here, within hours of arriving back, his secret was revealed: Evan found out..  
The greenhouse irrigation system malfunctioned, after having been damaged during the trip back through space. The timers for the scheduled watering cycle were off, pipes burst as the water was pumped through. Unaware of the damages and faulty timers, David was drenched in cold water unexpectedly as he walked through checking on the planting beds in the tropical section.

Caught completely by surprise, he fell to the path, helpless in his natural state, his body too heavy to drag away from the drain using just his arms. Anyone that came into the greenhouse would see him, lying there on the wet cement. His trousers, unaffected by the change, had torn and were cutting painfully into the tender flesh that no longer fit within them. He tried willing himself back to fully human form, but while he was wet, and lying on his back in a puddle on the greenhouse floor, he could not make the change.

His body was covering the drain, and the puddle of water that was collecting on the slightly slanted cement around it would not dry up before the faulty timers set the water off again for the next cycle, he could not wait this out. Uncertain what else to do or whom else he could trust, he tapped his radio and called Evan.

“Evan?”

“Hey, Doc, what’s up?” That was Evan’s open channel radio code for ‘someone else is in hearing range, keep it clean’ They were still keeping their relationship private. Even though the law had changed, attitudes had not.

David sighed heavily, in anticipation of Evan’s disgust and the end of everything between them. “I have a bit of a situation in Greenhouse 3. I need help, and it requires discretion. Can you get away?”

His lover took note of the tone of his voice, understanding this wasn’t a playful game or code for something else. “Uhm, okay. I can be there in ten minutes. Do I need to bring anything?”

“A couple of beach towels might be helpful, if you can find them.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

David waited anxiously, feebly trying to pull himself up using an overhanging branch, but he was simply too weak out of water in this form to lift his own body weight. He fell back to the cement and let go of the branch.

True to his word, Evan arrived in ten minutes. He heard the distant sound of the main door opening. “David, I’m here! Where are you, buddy?”

“Are you alone?” He called, ready to send Evan away if he were not.

He could hear Evan coming closer, his boots splashing in the water that was all over the greenhouse. “Yeah just me here, what’s going on, what’s happened?”

“Don’t freak out. Please, Evan, don’t freak out. at least not right away. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I wanted to stay. I couldn’t leave you. Please don’t hate me.”

“What the hell, David? Hate you for what? Oh. My. God!” Evan exclaimed as he pushed aside some large fronds and saw David. He was clutching a pile of beach towels to his chest and he stared at David.

David looked up at him sadly, his tentacles flopping limply on the cement in the place where his human legs and feet should be. “For this.”

  
~*~   


Evan moved closer, his expression one of curiosity, rather than disgust or fear. “This isn’t from some alien doo-hickey, is it? You didn’t touch something in the city?”

“No, I was like this before I joined the SGC.” David waved a hand down at the black and purple skin Evan could see where his shirt was rucked up over his midriff and continued down over the outer skin of his eight tentacles. From his middle up, he appeared to be human, the same David that Evan had known before. His arms, neck and face were still human and David-colored.

“How is this possible?” Evan found a dry-ish spot in the planting bed and set the towels down on some plants that had been under the shelter of others and not been thoroughly soaked from the sprinklers. Then he moved to David’s hip, or where his hip would have been if he had still possessed hips, and crouched down. Unable to resist, he reached out and brushed the shiny black skin with the tips of his fingers. He was the color of an orca whale, fading out to a deep swirling purple in places. Evan was fascinated by the patterns of swirls.

“I was born this way. I wanted to be on the land, so I learned how to change. My father was human.”

“Your mother?” Evan asked, pressing his palm to the cool skin, stroking downwards and smiling as one of the tentacles moved up and wrapped around his wrist. The underside was a purplish white and there were tiny suckers along the length.

David was keeping his eyes on Evan’s face. His expression was nervous, frightened. “She was like me, I was raised in the sea, near New Zealand.”

It occurred to Evan that his boyfriend might be in serious physical distress here, he seemed helpless. “Are you in pain like this, out of the water?”

Snorting, David shook his head. “I’m not out of the water, that’s the problem. The stupid puddle is keeping me stuck like this. I can’t really move, I’m not strong enough to move much. I’m sorta a beached whale, except for the whale part. Or the beach part, really, since there’s no sand. You get the point.” He gave Evan a wavering smile after laughing nervously. “I’m better in the water when I’m like this, I swear. I’m just helpless on land.”

“What can I do?” His eyes kept going to the expanse of shining black skin that started somewhere up under David’s t-shirt. The tentacle around his wrist was cool but not overly slimy, as he might have expected. It was kind of like touching a wet snake or more precisely, a manta ray, dolphin or killer whale, as he had done as a kid when visiting Sea World.

“Could you cut me out of the khakis? They hurt like hell.”

Evan drew his blade from the sheath at the small of his back and set to work slicing away the restrictive cotton, being slow and careful not to nick David’s skin.

“You aren’t freaking out,” David whispered as he looked at Evan with surprise. “I expected you to lose it.”

“David, I’ve been in the SGC for twelve years, very little freaks me out. I think it’s kinda cool. Really cool, actually.” Hot, even, he thought as David caressed him with the smooth tip of the tentacle. He wondered what it might be like to swim with David, to have those black tentacles wrapped around him in the water. Twisting around his arms, his legs, his... his mind began to drift to curiosity about just how much mobility David had with them, if they were prehensile like a monkey’s tail or elephant’s trunk. Obviously some, since one was around his wrist now. He forced his thoughts back to the problem at hand. They could discuss this later, when they had more privacy. Anyone could come into the greenhouse, it wasn’t a restricted area.

“Even after all this time, you still manage to amaze me, Evan. I’m still learning new things about you. I need to get out of the puddle and dried off so I can switch back.”

“Right back at ya, buddy.” Evan looked him over. The tentacles were about eight feet long. If he dragged David up into the planting bed beside the path, he could dry him off with the towels. Standing up, he straddled David’s middle and then crouched down again, putting his hands under David’s armpits. “Wrap your arms around my neck. I’m going to lift you and try to move you over under the big palm tree things here.”

For once, David didn’t correct him by giving him the long latin name of the plants in question. He did as Evan said, clinging tightly as Evan pulled him up. It was awkward, but he managed to shift David over onto the dirt on his belly, so the wetter side of him was facing up where Evan could get to it with the towels and check him over for injuries. He squashed a few plants in the process. Again, David didn’t fuss about the plants, which told Evan how upset he was by the situation.

After stripping David’s wet t-shirt off him, he gathered up the ends of the tentacles and shifted them over onto the dirt. Then he got the towels and began drying off the shiny skin, which began to dull as the moistness was sucked away from it. “This can’t be comfortable, drying out like this,” Evan remarked as he moved down and lifted a heavy tentacle in his hands and wrapped a towel around it.

“Not really, no,” David admitted.

“How long can you stay out of the water?”

“Indefinitely in my other form. If I don’t shift from this shape, maybe a day before I’d dry out and die, I guess.”

When David’s back was dried off, Evan carefully rolled him over and began wiping off his front, which now had the added bonus of being muddy. “Well, I think that’s the best I can do,” Evan declared, dropping a muddy towel on the cement path.

David smiled at him. “You did great. I should be able to shift soon.”

Going over to sit on the cement, the puddle was already dissipating now that the drain was clear, Evan sat and looked up and down David’s body. “You must be something to see underwater.”

“You think so?”

Evan nodded. “I’d like to see you. Maybe swim with you?”

“Again, you amaze me, Evan. Most people would think I’m disgusting.”

“I think you’re beautiful.”

One tentacle moved and dropped over Evan’s shoulder, curling around the back of his neck. The tip caressed his cheek. “Really?”

He sighed and closed his eyes as David stroked a tentacle over his skin. “Oh, yeah.” He shuddered as the cool skin slid across his collarbone and the tiny suckers touched the sensitive skin at his throat, pausing to caress at a spot David knew was especially erotic for Evan. “We have to go swimming, say yes, David, please.”

“Yes.” Another tentacle wrapped around his waist and Evan was urged forward until David could pull him into an embrace and kiss him. His question about the mobility of the tentacles was being answered. He felt others move up over him, holding him in the tightest and closest embrace he had ever experienced.

While they were kissing, he felt David suddenly tense and go stiff in his arms. The tentacles slid away from him and David went limp. He opened his eyes to see him grimacing in pain as he began to hunch in on himself. Within a minute, he was fully human again.

“You hulked out of your pants,” Evan teased, kissing his forehead as he groaned.

“Gimmee one of the towels.”

“Nah, they’re filthy and soaking wet. Wait here.” He stood and went back to the doors by the greenhouse. He smiled as he found David’s lab coat tossed over the chair by the desk. Retrieving it, he went back to David and wrapped it around his shoulders.

David was quiet as they took the back way to his quarters. Once they got there, he stood in the middle of the room, looking uncertain as to what to do. “If I had known you would be like this when you found out, it would have saved a lot of worry. I should have told you.”

“It’s a pretty big deal, David. Someone else might have reacted differently. But I love you, no matter what. You are the most beautiful person in the world to me.” At that, David threw himself into Evan’s arms, clinging to him tightly. Evan just held him and let him calm down. He’d had quite a scare in the greenhouse, the enormity of it all had to be crashing in on him. When enough time had passed that Evan could feel him relaxing, he ventured, “We need to clean up, we’re muddy.”

David pushed back and looked wistful. “I wish there was some place private enough to get a good dunking and splash around. The shower would end up the same as the greenhouse, with me in a heap on the floor.”

“Yeah?” Evan grinned at him suddenly, with the mischievous look that he usually had when he was about to propose something new or naughty. .

“Do you know of someplace? I was never able to find one.”

“I do, in fact, have a place in mind. One of the benefits of a high level security clearance. We can go to the Marine’s Pool, I’ll lock everyone out.” Evan started towards the door.

“Marine’s Pool?”

“It’s part of the desalinization area, an overflow pool that the SFs found the first year. It isn’t used much anymore, since the freshwater pool was found and the area off the North Pier was opened for swimming. It’s pretty private, there’s a code to let others know to keep out, it’s been used for private parties for years, it was quite the hotspot when DADT was still in effect. You never wanted to go when I tried to get you to go swimming.”

David crinkled his nose and gestured at his legs. “Yes, well, I wasn’t ready to share yet.”

“Grab towels and clothes. I’ll log off duty and go and get a change of clothes and meet you by the transporter.” On his way past David, he kissed his nose. “Love you.”

“I love you too,” David called after him.

  
~*~   


David waited nervously by the transporter. He had grabbed a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from his laundry and put them on, he hoped he didn’t stink. It had seemed like Evan was okay with him, with how he was. He sighed. He loved being in this form, being with Evan. It was different with his mother’s people. Everything was different; culture, mating, expectations. He hadn’t liked it there, which is why he had left. Humans and human emotions fulfilled a need in him he had not known before.

“Sorry! I had to mediate an argument before I could clock off. Ready?”

“Yup.”

When the door slid shut on the transporter, Evan went up on his toes and kissed him. “You okay?” He hit a destination dot, one of the unlit ones, David noted.

“Yeah, still a bit in shock because you aren’t.”

Evan shrugged. “Beauty in everything, David. I liked how you touched me, how your skin feels. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

The transporter door slid open and they were in one of the dark sections of the city. Evan turned on his flashlight and led the way along the corridors. It was dank and musty, officially the area wasn’t used by the expedition, Evan explained as they walked. Only some of the engineers came down here when there was a problem with desalinization.

They came to a door and Evan touched the crystal beside it. When the door opened, he tapped a code into the Earth-made keypad below the Ancient crystal. “Privacy. After you.” He gestured for David to go inside the dark room, which smelled of salt water.

Adjusting the lights at another pad inside the door, Evan smiled at him. “We don’t need it too bright, do we?”

“No, this is fine.” The room was enormous, cavernous, with a very high ceiling. Dripping water echoed in the room.

“This is the overflow area, this water will eventually be routed for use in flushing various systems after it is purified. The sea water has been through a screen, so it is pretty clean.” Evan pointed to a series of graduated tanks. “The one on the far end is the deepest, great for jumping and diving, but it isn’t quite as clean, it has only been filtered once. The shallow one on the end here is the cleanest water.”

“All salt?” David asked, brushing his fingertips over the top of the water as he leaned over the edge of the shallow tank, which was only about three and a half feet deep, though it was easily fifty feet in diameter.

“Yup, it isn’t desalinated yet, these aren’t even the main tanks.”

David began stripping out of his clothes, the lure of the salt water almost intoxicating. “Where can we get in?” He slung his shirt over one shoulder.

“Steps over there,” Evan pointed and David practically ran to get to them, Evan right behind him. “How far you want to go?” David asked, looking back over his shoulder at Evan.

“All the way baby!” Evan laughed and waved him on.

His nose was filled with the scent of his old home, and he needed to be in the water, though it had only been weeks since he had swum back on Earth. It was different now, Evan was here. He was sharing this, sharing himself, with Evan.

“Can you breathe underwater?”

“Yup. Gills.” He reached the grate that served as decking around one side of the largest pool and stepped up onto it. They were high up now, near the the ceiling. David dropped his shirt and the beach bag he had filled with towels and clean clothes on the deck. Evan did the same and began stripping out of his dirty uniform.

When Evan would have dove into the water, David grabbed his arm. “Wait. I want to...” he pulled Evan close and kissed him, tangling his hands in his hair. “Touch me first. Make me come.”

Kissing him deeply, Evan reached down between them and grasped his cock, caressing him slowly, the way David liked to start. He stroked him as David groaned and pushed up into his hand. “Good?”

“Yeah.”

“Want me to blow you?”  
Trembling with need, David nodded, shuddering as Evan went to his knees, kneeling on the towel he grabbed from his bag. His hands caressed everywhere, David’s ass, thighs, knees, groin as he sucked him in and used his mouth to pleasure him. Holding Evan’s head in his hands, David thrust back and forth slowly taking his partner’s mouth.

He was too excited to hold off for long and he hit his peak very quickly. He patted Evan’s head, warning him, “Coming.” Evan shrugged and continued to suck on him as he spilled into his mouth.

Laughing as Evan fell back onto his butt and stared up at him, David pointed to the water. “Swim?”

“Yeah.” Crawling to the edge, Evan swung himself around and slipped in. “It’s a little cold.”

“Doesn’t bother me.” David toed the edge for a few moments and then dived in. The change didn’t hurt as much under water. He shifted quickly and then swam up, surfacing behind Evan. He tapped him on the shoulder with one tentacle as he floated, his tentacles drifting around him.

“Hi.”

“Feel good?” Evan asked with a smile. He was treading water, kicking to keep his head up. David wrapped one of his stronger tentacles around Evan’s waist and held him up.

He nodded and brushed Evan’s hair back off his face, he had been wearing it longer the SGC was not as strict about regs regarding hair, though the front still spiked up endearingly. “Feels awesome. I miss the water.”

“I always thought you hated getting wet, since you wouldn’t go swimming with me, and avoided missions in the rain and I couldn’t coax you into shower sex.”

“Well, we’re in the water now. What would shower sex entail? You know, since I’ll obviously never be able to experience it for myself. Gimmee some dirty talk, tell me what you like best about it.”

Evan frowned at the admission. “Being wet, the water pounding down. Slick and soapy parts, damn, they slide so nicely against each other.”

Pulling Evan close with the tentacle wrapped around his middle, David caressed his face with the palms of his hands while under the water he slid one tentacle around each of Evan’s legs, coiled them loosely, and let them slide up and down, caressing him. “Slippery like this?”

“Yeah, that’s...” Evan gulped, “That’s really good. Keep doing that.”

He reached up with another tentacle and caressed Evan’s nipples with the tip. He drew circles on his skin, caressing his belly with the slippery side of the appendage. Evan shuddered and leaned into it, grabbing on with one hand and encouraging him to continue doing that.

Swishing two of his stronger tentacles around to keep their chins above water, David slid another around Evan, caressing his back in the same way that he was doing his stomach. “Oh, yeah, David, that’s just... that feels so good.”

He rubbed over Evan’s shoulder and then slid over and across it, letting one of the smaller suckers that was about a foot from the tip touch Evan’s left nipple. He applied pressure and Evan’s eyes flew open with surprise at the new sensation.

“Okay?” David asked.

Nodding in reply, Evan reached over and brushed his hand across David’s cheek. “I’m enjoying this a lot. It’s almost overwhelming, feeling so much sensation all at once, all over.”

“Do you want to go over the edge?”

“Yeahhhhhh. You’ll hold me. You won’t let me drown.” Evan kissed him, sucking on his lip as he broke off and tilted his head back, gasping as David began to caress his neck and throat with the tip of two tentacles.

“Never, I would never let you go. Do you trust me? I want to make you come. Do you still want to go all the way?” David breathed close to his ear.

Evan was writhing now as David stroked him all over. “Yeah, anything.”

He coiled his smallest tentacle around Evan’s cock and gave a tentative pull. Evan leaned back and screamed, the sound echoing through the room. “More, more, more,” he panted as David reached down with his hands and pulled Evan’s ass cheeks apart. He continued stroking Evan’s cock while he slipped another tentacle in between his thighs, sliding in and out, caressing his balls from behind and the stretch of skin there before teasing at his hole.

That touch evoked a steady stream of nonsense from Evan. He alternately went limp or tensed up as the waves of pleasure hit him. David was now completely supporting him, holding him with his hands on Evan’s waist above the tentacle he still had wrapped there, keeping Evan from going under. “Keep going, more...” Evan begged, lifting his head up out of the water to look at David with a pleading look in his eyes. David knew that look. It was the ‘fuck me senseless’ look. He loved that look.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah, more. Push in.”

David smirked. He slipped the tip into Evan’s ass, his eyes on his face as he did so. He ended up having to put a hand up under his head to keep him from going under water. His eyes were closed and he had a blissful expression on his face. “Damn, I should have told you sooner. I love you all loose like this”

He leaned down and sucked Evan’s hard right nipple into his mouth. He occasionally pulled the sucker off the left nipple and caressed it with the tip of the tentacle. Having his tentacles available to make love to Evan was turning out to be so much fun. Inch by inch, he slid deeper into Evan’s ass watching his partner loose control and come apart. Evan rarely ever let go like this, and never while they were on Atlantis. It was a joy to watch it happen.

The beauty of it was, he could stroke in and out of Evan like this for as long as Evan wanted it. Evan winced as he got deeper and tentacle grew wider. “Too much? You have to tell me when to stop, Evan. I’m not going to go soft on you or come and have to pull out. Say when, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. But not yet, please. Pull out and push back in now.”

He obliged him and Evan began to keen as David thrust in and out of him, kicking his legs as David held them apart with the tentacles around them. He slid one up and wrapped it around his scrotum and tugged. Evan screamed, jerked and then and went completely limp, he had blacked out. David held him up, stopped moving and waited for him to come around again.

“Do we need to stop?” David asked Evan when he opened his eyes and looked at him.

“If you want to. I came.”

“You said you wanted to go over the edge.”

Evan nodded and twisted a little, changing position. He put his arms around David’s shoulders and David let him drift down so that they were nose to nose. “You’re still inside me.” Evan whispered.

“Yeah, feel good? You feel so good, all tight around me.”

“Uh huh, I like it. Move again?”

David kissed his nose and began to slide in and out, pushing a little further in with each return stroke. Evan kissed his throat and cheek and held on, one arm wrapped around David’s neck, one hand buried in his hair as David held him everywhere, with arms and tentacles.

“We should stop, you have to work tomorrow, your ass is going to be very sore.” Evan had taken almost the entire length of David’s tentacle that did not have suckers on it inside him, and they had been at this for quite some time.

Evan pouted but nodded in agreement and David withdrew from his body.

“Let’s swim for a while,” David suggested.

Splashing over to the edge of the tank, Evan held on while David cavorted happily under water for a while. He went to Evan’s side when he crooked a finger at him, and stayed still as Evan lightly touched the gills that fluttered at his neck with curiosity.

David looked into Evan’s face and saw that he was getting sleepy. “We should go and eat. We can come back and play another time,” he suggested.

Reluctantly, like a little boy being ordered out of the backyard swimming pool, Evan swam to the edge and climbed out. He held both hands out for David, pulling him up onto the deck.

They dried off and Evan watched the change happen with fascination. “It hurts,” he said in observation as David finished and lay panting on the decking. Evan reached over and lightly caressed David’s legs.

“Yeah. But not for long. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you miss living in the sea?” Evan asked as they dressed.

“Sometimes. But I like it on land more. I couldn’t give it up, especially now, you’re here.”

“I love you too, David.”

They held hands as they went down the stairs at a much more sedate pace than they had gone up.

At the bottom, Evan pulled him into his arms and kissed him tenderly, pushing his hair back and tucking it behind his ears, then pressing their foreheads together. “I really enjoyed what we did up there. Thank you for sharing it with me. I love you.”

“I love you too. Thank you for accepting me for who I am.”

“We’re getting sappy.”

David nodded. “Definite lack of protein. Let’s hit the mess hall. I think there’s fish sticks.”

“You eat fish sticks?”

“Well, it isn’t like they’re real fish.”

 

 

The End   



End file.
